This constitution was proclaimed in the colony in October, 1856, and the first parliament elected under it commenced its work on April 22, 1857. Thus constitutional government and self-rule were established in South Australia. With such a parliament responsible ministers were, as a matter of course, a part of the system, and on 24th of October, 1856, five gentlemen undertook the government of the colony as chief secretary, attorney-general, treasurer, commissioner of crown lands and immigration, and commissioner of public works. From that day to the period of my visit to the colony,--April, 1872,--there had been no less than twenty-four sets of ministers; but the cabinet remained the same, with the five officers whom I have named. CHAPTER II. ADELAIDE. Adelaide is a pleasant, prosperous town, standing on a fertile plain, about seven miles from the sea, with a line of hills called the Mount Lofty Range forming a background to it. On 31st December, 1871, the city proper contained 27,208 inhabitants, and the suburbs, so called, contained 34,474, making a total of 61,682 persons either living in the metropolis, or so closely in its neighbourhood as to show that they are concerned in the social and commercial activity of the city. On the same date the entire population of the colony was 189,018. Adelaide alone, therefore, contains very nearly a third of the life of the whole community of South Australia. This proportion of urban to rural population,--or I may perhaps better say of metropolitan to non-metropolitan,--is very much in excess of that which generally prevails in other parts of the world. The same result has come of the immigration to the other great Australian colonies, though not quite to the same extent. The population of Melbourne and its suburbs up to the beginning of 1872 was 206,000, and that of the colony was 755,000. The population of Sydney and its suburbs was 136,000, and that of New South Wales 500,000. In each case the population of the one city with its suburbs is between a third and a fourth of that of the entire colony, and in each case the proportion of urban to rural population is unusually high.